[Foundation-l] Akahele: Omidyar venturing out

[Anthony]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Sage Ross
<ragesoss+wikipedia at gmail.com<ragesoss%2Bwikipedia at gmail.com>
> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:41 PM, Anthony<wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> > If Omidyar Networks had not offered a grant, but offered to put Halprin
> on
> > the board, would the board have accepted it?  I don't see anyone with
> > knowledge of the situation saying no.
>
> I had the impression that WMF had been courting Omidyar Network for
> some time; it's hard for me to imagine that a potential grant wasn't
> part of the context right from the beginning.  But indeed, we're
> mostly speculating here.


>From a board report: "On August 15, invitations went out for the San
Francisco Funders' Briefing to be held at Kapor Enterprises on September 23,
2008.  Current confirmed guests include representatives from the Stanton,
Moore and Gates Foundations as well as representatives from the Omidyar
Network, and individual prospective donors."

The Q&A says "The two organizations have been talking since shortly after
the Wikimedia Foundation relocated to San Francisco from St. Petersburg,
Florida in January 2008."

I've reread what you said, though: "he basically said that he and/or Omidyar
Network expressed interest in a seat on the board because of the grant
negotiations".  I guess that's fairly safe to say.

And on that, I guess my quota for the day for this thread is filled.